1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to an imaging apparatus, a microscope system, an imaging method, and a computer-readable recording medium, for stitching a plurality of images obtained by imaging a specimen to create a wide-field image.
2. Related Art
In recent years, a virtual slide technique has been known. The virtual slide technique records an image of a specimen placed on a glass slide as electronic data such that a user can observe the image on a monitor of a personal computer, or the like. With the virtual slide technique, partial images of a specimen enlarged by a microscope are sequentially stitched together so as to organize a wide-field high-resolution image of the entire specimen. In other words, the virtual slide technique obtains a plurality of images with different fields of a same object and stitches these images so as to create an enlarged image of the object. Processing to connect a plurality of images is, in some cases, referred to as stitching processing (refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-3214, for example).
Some specimens observed in the fields of biology and medicine are degraded by exposure to light. For example, there are cases in which fading of color occurs on a stained specimen, or health of a cultured cell is impaired by exposure to light. An effect of light like this is also referred to as phototoxicity. To avoid this, the specimen that is degraded by exposure to light is treated such that it is stored in the absence of light and that the minimum required amount of light is emitted in a limited time of imaging (refer to “Kaitei Baiyo Saibo Jikken Handobukku (The cell culture protocols, second edition)” Namho Huh and Yukio Nakamura (Eds.), YODOSHA, Published on Jan. 1, 2009, p. 173, for example).